


1-2-3, T-S-P

by yet_intrepid



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Absent John, Dyscalculia, Gen, Jell-O, Learning Disabilities, Sick Dean Winchester, Weechesters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2018-02-23 02:45:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2531180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yet_intrepid/pseuds/yet_intrepid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Dean puts his one grocery bag on the counter. He trashes the receipt, gets out the bottle of cough syrup and the box of blue jello. Sam wanted jello. It’s hard to make in the microwave, but it works okay. Besides, maybe it’ll help Dean’s throat. Better than having to buy even more medicine—or worse, ask Dad to take him to the doctor when he gets back."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1-2-3, T-S-P

The key doesn’t want to go in.

Dean bites his lip. Then he rattles the doorknob and turns harder, but it still won’t go. He looks up. They’re supposed to be in room twenty-five. He thinks this is it, but it might say fifty-two. The numbers are all blurry. It’s like they move every time he looks away.

He turns it one more time and finally the door bursts open, sending him and Sam half-tumbling into the room. Dean gets the door shut and locked behind them before he turns around, coughing, to find Sam on the floor.

He sighs. “Come on, Sam.”

Sam looks up at him, pouting, and doesn’t get up. Dean just shakes his head, because if he talks too much his throat hurts, and puts his one grocery bag on the counter. He trashes the receipt, gets out the bottle of cough syrup and the box of blue jello. Sam wanted jello. It’s hard to make in the microwave, but it works okay. Besides, maybe it’ll help Dean’s throat. Better than having to buy even more medicine—or worse, ask Dad to take him to the doctor when he gets back.

Dean fills a plastic dish with water and puts it in the microwave long enough that he thinks it’ll boil. Then he coughs, and looks at the cough syrup box. He remembers one time he took too much medicine, and then Sam freaked out because he fell asleep really hard. Dad was pissed, told him not to do that again. So now he’s got to figure it out.

On the back of the box is a chart. It’s got numbers, and they’re blurring like the ones on the door. Moving. Switching places. Dean’s heart starts speeding up because the chart looks just like some homework he’s got in his bag, homework he doesn’t know how to do. And it sucks when he can’t this stuff for school but now he has to do it for _real_ and he still can’t do it and he’ll screw it up; he’ll take too much and fall asleep and not look after Sam. Or he won’t take enough and then it’ll be a waste of money, which it already might be and Dad probably won’t be happy Dean bought it but he _did_. So he needs to do it right. He just doesn’t know how.

“Dean? Hey, Dean.” It’s Sam. Dean looks over, trying to quiet his breathing. Sam’s still sitting on the floor. “I can’t get my shoes off. And are you gonna make the jello?”

Dean closes his eyes, just for one second. Then he nods. “Yeah, I’m gonna make the jello. But let me help with your shoes first.”

He kneels down and undoes the too-tight knots on Sam’s boots. Sam grins up at him, wiggling his toes, as the first one comes off. When both boots are untied, Sam pulls off his socks after them and jumps up. Dean goes to take the water out of the microwave, mixing in the jello powder with an old fork. He coughs some more.

“Hey Dean,” says Sam, “how much do you weigh?”

“I dunno,” says Dean, “seventy-five pounds?”

“Then you need two tsps,” says Sam, sounding out the consonants. “What’s a tsp?”

“It’s a small spoonful,” Dean says, against the soreness of his throat. He isn’t sure, but he thinks that’s right. He’s not sure, either, whether to be mad, because of course Sam could read the table. Of course Sam could and he couldn’t. It helped, anyway. If Dean can’t do it, somebody has to. But he still feels like a piece of shit. Seriously, a seven-year-old can do math better than him.

“Cool,” says Sam. He finds a plastic spoon and digs the bottle of cough syrup out of the box. Dean puts the jello into the minifridge, and when he turns around Sam’s handing him the open bottle and the spoon.

“Two, remember,” Sam says.

“You’re such a know-it-all,” says Dean, but he gives Sam a friendly poke as he takes the medicine and pours himself one spoonful after another, swallowing them down. It’s grape flavored and he tries to tell himself it’s just like Dad’s stupid grape and watermelon candies that they use to stay awake sometimes on trips or hunts. It stings his throat. He tries to push back the grimace, but instead he just coughs and coughs and coughs.

When he stops, Sam’s looking at him. “I’m glad we got the medicine,” he says.

Dean smirks weakly. “So you could show off your geeky math skills?”

“So you’ll get _better_ , dork.”

“And so you could get me to buy jello.”

Sam blushes. “Did you throw away the receipt? Dad won’t be happy about the jello.”

Dad might not be happy about the cough syrup either, but Dean can’t take care of Sam if he can’t get out of bed, can he? Course if Dean were stronger, no measly little cough would stop him. “Yeah, I did.”

“I didn’t want jello just for me. You’ve been talking like your throat’s scratchy.”

“My throat’s fine.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Whatever. I’ve gotta do homework.”

“Put your boots away first.”

“You haven’t even taken yours off.”

“Yeah well, you’re not the boss.”

“Yeah well, you’re sick and you need to get better and sick people don’t wear their shoes inside.”

Dean kicks off his boots. “Happy?”

Sam picks up his. “Yeah,” he says. “As long as we eat jello tonight.”

“Done deal,” says Dean. He’s got his own homework, and he knows he’ll still be shit at it, but maybe he’ll do a little bit better now that he has some medicine. And besides, Dad always says that the only way to get stronger is to just do the hard stuff anyway.

He digs out his homework and settles down on the couch beside Sam, staring resolutely at the flying numbers. He might have to have cough syrup now, but he’ll get better at this stuff. One day he won’t need help to do what’s gotta be done.


End file.
